Unofficial news and tips about Google

March 20, 2012

Customize Gmail's Buttons: Replace Icons With Text

If you don't like that the new Gmail interface replaced most text labels from buttons with icons, there's an option that lets you disable this tweak. Just go to Gmail's settings page, select "text" in the "button labels" section and click "save changes".

Before:

After:

"Icons brought consistency across languages and solved problems with functions that had long names. Some people loved the new icons. Others, especially low vision users, found words easier to distinguish," says Google.

My main issue is that some of the Gmail icons aren't very helpful. For example, it's not obvious that the exclamation mark is an icon for reporting messages as spam. The icons are also small and monochromatic.

I don't know what' wrong with my gmail settings, but the option is not there!! I looked for something like that the first time I saw the damn icons because I hate them, I can never be sure what the hell they mean and after reading your post I guessed I had overlooked the option. But no. It's not there in my settings, I've looked everywhere.

My main issue is that some of the Gmail icons aren't very helpful. For example, it's not obvious that the exclamation mark is an icon for reporting messages as spam. The icons are also small and monochromatic.

I cant understand a bloody thing. I have to hit the icon and wait for it to tell me what it did and then quickly hit undo and hope i did it in time. This is rubbish. I cant find the text label option either. I'm using razr ics.

have a suggestion. is it possible to make three icons for gmail, contact and tasks instead of the original one button with listbox. would be convenient to click only one button to be able to swich to contacts, tasks or gmail. there is plenty of room free for these extra icons.